Three generations of the St. Croix Milligan families arrived on the Rhapsody Seas cruise ship at the Ann Abramson Pier Saturday. It was a first visit for all except one — Freddy Richardson, who made his first trip to the big island in 2010.
St. Croix native Catherine Milligan Terrell welcomed the Milligans with Crucian hospitality traversing the island, while taking in all the sights along the way. Point Udall on the east end and the public beach on the west end were highly favored. The group also visited the Frederiksted Cemetery. The Aquaholics Restaurant on the west end served local food and drinks to the family during the afternoon.
The visiting Milligan/Mulligan families are all connected to their grandmother Agatha Eliza Mulligan, who was a two-year-old toddler when she migrated with her parents and one-year-old brother Jerome to Santo Domingo in 1901.
The family toured Water Gut, where Agatha and her brother lived with their parents before migrating to the Dominican Republic. The house is still standing — their ancestral legacy.
There were opportunities for Agatha’s parents, John and Madlane Mulligan, to work harvesting sugar cane in Santo Domingo. Although John was a blacksmith, the family left the Danish West Indies for a better way of life that offered more economic possibilities. The Mulligans were strong in their convictions and they moved on.
Ahni Richardson-Brown is the family travel planner who organized a trip to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, for 30 Milligan relatives in 2022. Brown began planning this year’s cruise as soon as they returned from Punta Cana, which grew to 48 family members and included Agatha’s grandchildren, great-grandchildren, their cousins, and three toddlers who were just about the age of Agatha when she sailed from St. Croix to the Dominican Republic.
cousin Catherine Milligan Terrell, center. (Photo courtesy Catherine Milligan Terrell)
Since those early days of the last century, the Milligan family migrated to the states and has spread out across the nation to New York, Virginia, San Diego and other places.
Freddy Richardson is Ahni’s older brother, who reminisced about his grandmother Agatha telling him what she remembered about St. Croix, although at the early age of two-years-old.
“I was born in 1961 in San Pedro de Maloris in the Dominican Republic and moved to New York with my parents when I was nine years old. My parents always wanted to visit St. Croix, but they both passed on before the trip was made possible,” Freddy said.
Freddy knew he had a lot of family, but he didn’t know where they all migrated. He was always open and aware of finding his family name, Milligan or Mulligan, so he would look for both in his search.
Damian Brown and Freddy met in New York. The young man reminded Freddy very much of his uncle. When I mentioned this to Damian, we talked and talked and I found out that his mother is a Milligan. We’re family, Freddy said. “It feels good to know who your blood family is.”
In 2010, Freddy traveled to St. Croix. He met his cousins Catherine Milligan Terrell and her brother Edward Milligan. They explained to Freddy that as very young people, the family members could not read or write and they spelled their name as both Milligan and Mulligan. “My father’s St. Croix high school diploma has him as Hugh Mulligan,” Catherine said.
The Milligan family expressed how delighted they felt seeing the home of their ancestors and finding cousins they met for the first time. “This is our legacy; this is priceless,” Freddy said.
And those sixth-generation toddlers — what will they remember about their journey across the waters in search of their Milligan ancestry? Time will tell.
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